Posts by nitsedy

Re: "guidelines of 259 to 317 months imprisonment.

Little known fact - El Reg is run by a bunch of housewives who are still measuring the ages of their children in months. "Little Bobby is 374 months old, I'm so proud of him! You should see the Minecraft server he runs in his room downstairs!!"

Re: Internet of things?

Damn straight. The concept that every freaking thing in the world would somehow magically be better if we just added some AJAX to it is idiotic. The truth is management is constantly in an idea crisis - they never have any. So, they chase the next shiny object or fad hoping that if they get lucky then revenue will magically appear and they can look like heroes without actually doing anything.

Worrying over the people who actually KNOW how the business works (engineers and IT) working together is just another management CONsultant trying to justify his next overpriced contract.

Archaic architecture

We dumped Cisco at all of our locations years ago. The cost was insane (a $150 for a freaking NIC?!), the never-ending expensive certifications, and the arbitrary limits built into the Cisco system all were a huge drag. Worse, if you wanted to do something more you had to upgrade not just software, but also hardware. I built our first Linux router and never looked back. We now have up-times of a year or more except for the random long-term power outage or the need for an administrative reboot. We have complete control of the entire system. We can add or remove features as we see fit. We can put it on hardware that fits our requirements. We can train our own employees. We can build-in API's for monitoring and command. I control my network now, not my vendor.

A little more history is in order.

The Bomba was not invented out of whole cloth by Turing. It was an improvement on the Polish Bomba Kryptologiczna created circa 1938 by mathematician and cryptologist Marian Rejewski who had broken the Enigma code after recognizing that the trigram rotator setting was repeated at the beginning of each message (apparently the German high command didn't bother to follow the directions). Initially Rejweski and his staff ran through the calculations by hand to decipher the codes, but with improvements to the Enigma and a desire to decrypt faster Rejewski built the Bomba to streamline the computational process. As the political relationship with the Germans deteriorated Poland attempted to give the information to the French, but they decided that they were safe because they had a line of forts across Europe and the Germans couldn't possibly do anything to them (except drive right past on their way for Paris). Eventually the British accepted Rejewski's research and then promptly locked out of the continuing research and left it to Turing and the rest at Bletchley to build on his work.

Rejewski has been shorted far too often by Bletchley and at some point they really should give him the credit that he deserves. Without his pioneering work it is doubtful that Turing and the rest would have had a foundation to build upon.

Re: An anagram of Lewis Page...

Re: An anagram of Lewis Page...

Re: They lie!

The 7 days as "ages" cannot be hermeneutically reasoned from the text. That interpretation really came up as a response to the claims of evolution as an attempt to reconcile the long times required for evolution and the short times defined in the Bible. Here's a good discussion on the issue: http://creation.com/how-long-were-the-days-of-genesis-1

Good for Google!

Traditional attempts to solve this problem have argued that men need to sit in meetings, be shown horrific videos, and then be told that they're evil misogynists by axe-wielding HR staffers. Google's approach is the right one, look at the objective data and then act on it. Everything mentioned here is objective, logical and reasonable. Moreover it does not discriminate against men while balancing out the natural differences in how men and women communicate. Nice to see a company taking on this kind of issue completely apart from emotions, accusations, and assumptions.

and........

...so the nerd war ensues. Before long someone will have to bring up whether or not the light being emitted is a wave or particle and then someone will take another point of view and the whole thing will go all to hell in a slit experiment. Eventually the density of the argument will reach singularity and it will all circle in upon itself with little more than hawking radiation leaking out of the thread. Time will stop. The universe will freeze. Hope will be gone. Eternity itself will become infinitely infinite. Blackless black. Deathless death. Meaningless meaningless.

Zardoz

Sean Connery in a red mankini with crossed suspenders, a floating stone head puking guns out of its mouth, a plot line that is still undecipherable, and the most random rape scene ever conceived in a movie (in the barn....with the spaced out chick....and Connery who apparently just decides, "Why the hell not?").

Yep

Seen it. Fired people for it. On the other hand, at some point we need to realize that business units will always treat IT as a lowly service department within the company (like janitors) if IT lets them. "IT is an expense." "IT has to do what they're told." "IT has to be kept under control." "IT can be abused because they SERVE us."

If IT wants things to change then IT needs to speak up in the professional environment and make it clear that the abuse needs to end. The idea that everyone else is a professional and IT are the "geeks" and "nerds" who don't do anything "important" is a self-fulfilling prophecy unless IT stands up and demonstrates that they're a hell of a lot more important than the company is giving them credit for.

So, put down the beer. Toss the reefer. Put on a decent shirt. Quit feeling bad for yourself. Get up and make a professional stand.

....and with the magic of Google here's a June 1980 news report about the crazy mobile thing being deployed: http://tinyurl.com/78w36dr Apparently this was the kind of project that just wouldn't die. By 1980 the schools in our rural state had Apple II's and TRS-80's for teachers to use. Honestly, the whole thing looks like one of those higher-ed stunts where some career climber writes a grant so they can trumpet to the world how progressive they are with their ideas and pad their CV. Then they get a bunch of lowly undergrads to do the grunt work while they go off to conferences to receive the praise of people who don't know any better.

How about - be a good employee.

What matters in an interview with me is: basic technical skill for the position, strong interpersonal skills, personal integrity, a clear understanding of how business works, and a good work ethic. Anything more than that is just icing on the cake. Sadly, very few people can pass those tests. And, yes, I can figure out if you have integrity during an interview. It isn't hard. And even if I miss it in the interview I'll find out in the 90 day probationary period.

As for the stupid "gotcha" questions interviewers try to use (like asking what the USB 2.0 transfer rate is) the best response is, "If I really need to know it then I'll Google it." When I'm interviewing prospective employees I'm looking for real skills and usable knowledge not arrogated trivia. The days when it was helpful to have a geek around with encyclopedic knowledge of digital trivia are long gone. Now I need a competent individual who can work successfully in a business environment.